


Oh, What A Night

by PanicFOB



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Song Lyrics, the four seasons - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-21 13:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21300101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanicFOB/pseuds/PanicFOB
Summary: Three times that Steve encounters an intriguing woman on the very same night. Inspired by the song "December, 1963" by the Four Seasons (but it is set in modern-day, not the 60s!).
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	1. Didn't even know her name, but I was never gonna be the same...

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, okay, I know you're all probably groaning at the fact that I'm starting a new mini-series without having updated Applied Ethics in ages. I promise to work on that fic very soon, but I had this idea that I just needed to get out. There will only be 3 parts, and 2 and 3 will probably be posted tomorrow and the next day. Anyway, I just didn't want you all to think I had abandoned my other WIPs, I'm just getting them done slowly one at a time :)

Antsy hands waved wildly at yellow cabs flying by. None of them wanted to stop. Steve raised up on his tippy toes and flung his hand about more insistently.

Was this how people suffered every day without a vehicle of their own? Steve was hopeless without his bike, but it was a pathetic old thing that needed an unfortunate amount of work. A jarring call had pulled him out of a blissful nap this evening: Natasha telling him to get his Star-Spangled Ass to the compound immediately for an emergency briefing.

He got a sense, as he flung one leg over to straddle his beloved bike, that it had seen better days. An inkling in his mind told him, before he ever turned the key, that no life would thrive in the engine today. The beautiful thing sputtered for a moment and then fell silent, just as it had done a couple of days back. Steve would have to call the shop tomorrow.

He sent out a desperate plea that whatever the emergency was, it wouldn’t be a world-ending catastrophe if Captain America didn’t make it there on time. He was considering calling Clint for an airlift on the quinjet. Or he supposed he could double back and take the subway, but that was a whole other evil entirely.

Horns blared, pedestrians bumped and shoved, lights flashed at the nearby intersection. But still, no yellow cabs came anything close to a stop.

Maybe it would be faster to simply run to the compound? But it was a frightening distance from the neighborhood where his apartment rested. And from the street corner on which he now stood, looking like a madman flailing his arms about and desperately wishing a yellow cab would just hit its fucking breaks already.

Across the street, a vision in a pea coat. A mirror image of Steve’s own strange hand-waving routine. A competitor in this absurd dancing ritual for a simple ride uptown.

An emerald sweater peeked out from the sleeve of her coat each time she raised and thrust her hands for emphasis. A fierceness burned in her eyes, pinning down each cab driver as he passed and holding steadfast in her erratic plea that he put his foot on the break right that very moment.

They didn’t pay her any mind though. She was in the very same state that Steve found himself. Surely with an important place to be, and absolutely no good way of getting there. Why couldn’t these yellow devils simply take pity on the both of them?

Large hands at the ends of muscular, sweater-clad arms finally lowered. Steve placed two fingers to his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle. He’d tried this technique ten minutes prior with no positive results, but here he was, doing it again, hoping that at least one of these cab drivers had a heart.

And then… the dark clouds parted, making way for the dim winter sun. Everything in the street slowed, the crosswalk counters magically ticking by at a much more leisurely pace. Steve’s ears rang from the noise of his whistle, and all other traffic and commotion faded away. In front of him, a parked yellow cab, appearing out of nowhere as if it had been conjured by some magician. His saving grace. The world would not end after all because Captain America finally had a ride to the emergency briefing.

“Hey!” a shrill voice stopped him as he opened the back door of the cab.

Cars swerved around her, desperately trying not to commit manslaughter as the vision in a pea coat strutted across the street.

“That’s my cab!” she called out. It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. She didn’t look prone to let Steve leave in the cab that he was pretty sure had stopped because of his loud whistle.

“I’m sorry miss,” he assured her as she reached his side of the street. “Any other day, I’d be happy to let you take it, but I’ve got an emergency.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do Mr. Looks Like He’s On His Way To The Gym. I’ve waited two whole hours for a ride. I can’t wait any longer.” Her arms were crossed, making it very clear that she was not letting the matter go easily.

Steve glanced down and realized for the first time that he was still wearing sweatpants. They clashed horribly with his nicer-looking blue sweater. How had he forgotten to throw on some jeans?

“I promise you, I’m not headed to the gym… Wait, did you say two whole hours? There’s no way you’ve been waiting that long.”

She tapped her foot. “Fine. It’s been thirty minutes, and I really have somewhere I need to be, so would you please just let me have this cab, mister?”

Steve Rogers, raised respectful from the start, reminded of his manners every day back in 30s Brooklyn, fighter of bullies, and defender of humankind could not find it in himself to turn the woman down and take off with this cab.

“How about we share?” It was his final plea. His only hope of saving the world after all.

“Will one of you just get in already?!” the driver hollered from the front.

She threw her arms up in defeat. “Fine! Fine! We’ll share.”

He waited for her to climb in, watching as she carefully tucked the pea coat smoothly under her bottom in the seat, and then he hopped in next to her and slammed the door.

“Please tell me you’re going uptown too,” she begged.

“I am actually,” Steve said happily, and his lips quirked into a genuine smile.

They both informed the driver of their respective destinations. He figured he was already dreadfully late, and a tiny further delay wouldn’t make much of a difference, so he suggested the cab take the woman to her stop first.

“That’s… very kind of you. I’m sorry for my cantankerous behavior back there. I just really needed a ride, and I needed it asap.”

He waved away her apology. “I completely understand. And we’ve both got a ride now, so, no harm, no foul.”

“Right.” She nodded her head curtly before turning away from him and staring out the window.

Uncomfortable bumps kept Steve’s head hitting the ceiling every five seconds or so. The driver didn’t appear to have any inclination for avoiding potholes. He felt like an oaf in compact cares. A troll. A giant. It was why he loved his bike so much. No closed spaces. No low roofs.

He tried not to curse under his breath each time the top of his head connected with the ceiling of the cab, but he’d been hanging out with Bucky and Sam too often, and the occasional whispered “fuck” did slip out. The vision in the pea coat probably thought he was a vulgar idiot. She probably thought he was the type to spend twelve hours a day in the gym and never open up a single book.

For some reason, Steve found himself desperately wanting to prove her wrong. Just as she had regretted getting off on the wrong foot by being combative and demanding, Steve was sure he had gotten off on the wrong foot by seeming dim and ungentlemanly.

A longing unfurled in his chest. A hope to explore this more. An interest in a stranger. A woman so striking and stunning. A vision.

Steve wanted to ask her for dinner…. but he had a world-ending emergency.

As he conflicted over the compelling force to abandon his duties and ask her out, he felt the cab slow and then come to an abrupt halt.

“This is me,” she said as the door was open. And then there was a pea coat in his view out the window. And then there was nothing.

He quickly glanced around to find that they’d dropped her off in a residential area. Surely she hadn’t caused all that commotion simply to get a ride home?

But as the driver peeled away in route to the compound, Steve supposed he would never know. It dawned on him now that he hadn’t even thought to ask her name.

Maybe if the world didn’t end tonight, he’d cross paths with the emerald-sweater-clad vision in a pea coat once again. His fingers were crossed.


	2. Felt a rush like a rolling bolt of thunder, spinning my head around and taking my body under...

Fighting alongside them was a well-practiced choreography. It was ducking as Natasha lunged. Swerving as Bucky punched. Kicking as Sam swooped. His shield flying and ricocheting as Tony blasted through half of their enemies.

Sometimes, Steve would almost zone out through each hit and dodge and wrestle. It was all muscle memory. All a mindless fight. Rarely did his brain ever focus on anything in particular when he had a group of bullies to take down.

This fight seemed to be no different. He was barely paying any mind to what Sam was shouting over the coms. It was one masked figure knocked unconscious after another. It was blood and sweat and grit. And a tiny pinch of pain, but rarely could an enemy hurt Steve.

But then…

A pea coat.

A vision in a pea coat. Just down the block. Walking toward the entrance of a pizza place. A young boy walking beside her. His small hand clasped in hers. Both of them completely unaware of the commotion slowly heading in their direction.

She was a distraction, a lurch to his mindless focus. He couldn’t help but follow her with his gaze. And then Steve was blown back by an explosion, head against the pavement and ringing in his ears.

As he worked to shake his confusion and get his feet back under him, Steve’s whole being was filled with worry. His team was made of super human beings, sure, but that didn’t mean they were invincible. Anytime there was any sort of sudden danger while they were in the field, each member of Steve’s team would flash through his mind in a panic. Each of his friends who could be gone in a heartbeat if Steve didn’t do his best to protect them.

This time, there were two more faces that Steve saw right after those of his team. The woman in the emerald sweater and the boy who had been with her. Steve hoped they’d gotten far enough away from the blast to not suffer any injury, but he had to know. He had to get to them.

Ankles shook beneath his weight as he finally stood to full height. He brought a trembling hand up to his face to wipe a thick layer of dirt from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He did a quick glance to see Tony and Sam helping out the others as they had been too high in the air to be affected by the explosion. There were also still enemies alive and trying to use the huge distraction as a getaway. He spotted one running down the block in the direction of where he had last seen the woman.

Steve shut his brain off once more and started running.

The criminal really didn’t have a chance once Steve’s peak speed was reached. He tackled the masked man and knocked him unconscious with an easy hit to the head. Steve was on the sidewalk just outside of the pizza place now, and he noted that all the front shop windows had been shattered. He scanned the interior and found the owners peeking out from behind the counter and the woman adorning a pea coat crouched underneath a table and huddled around the young boy in an effort to protect him.

Steve approached her and knelt down to be at eye level.

“Are you and your boy all right, miss?” he said in the gentlest voice he could muster, trying not to startle her further.

She turned her head slowly and got a good look at his blood and dirt coated face. “I… we’re fine I think… do I…. know you from somewhere?”

He offered her a comforting smile then. “We fought over a cab about an hour ago?”

He watched her mouth fall slightly in shock. “That was… you’re Captain America?”

It was now that his ears picked up the quiet sobs of the boy in her arms.

“I am. We better get you two somewhere safer.”

He held out his hand, and she took it to help her stand. She clung tightly to the boy she was carrying on her hip.

Tony’s voice came through with a bit of static in Steve’s ear. “All targets have been successfully detained. Let’s work on rescue and clean up.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay, what’s your name little guy?” Steve asked the boy.

“This is my nephew, Oliver,” the woman answered for him.

“Well, Oliver, I’ve got good news. You don’t have to be scared anymore because my teammate just told me that all the bad guys have been caught.”

The boy continued to sob, but Steve motioned for the woman to follow him to where medics would surely have arrived by now. “Don’t step on the broken glass,” he warned her as they exited the front of the store.

She simply nodded in understanding, clearly still in a bit of shock. Most likely from both the explosion and the fact that Captain America was the same man she had shared a cab with earlier that evening.

Back on the street, there were, thankfully, at least a dozen ambulances waiting to take the injured to hospitals. “We’ve got a young boy here that needs to be examined,” Steve called out to one of the medics.

The man swiftly approached them and began doing basic checks on the boy’s health to make sure that he was only crying out of fear and not because he had been hurt. The woman looked dreadfully worried for her nephew, and Steve heavily sympathized with how she must be feeling.

The medic led the boy to sit down at the back of an ambulance so that he could have his blood pressure checked. The woman gnawed at her lip as she watched on with worry. “It’s his birthday,” she said in a barely audible voice to a stoic Steve still standing next to her.

“Ah man, that sucks. I’m so sorry, miss.”

“His mother, my sister, had a shift at the hospital. She’s a nurse. Anyway, I promised I would take him out for pizza and ice cream tonight to celebrate his birthday since his mom couldn’t. That’s why I was in such a hurry earlier; I had to get there before she left for her shift.”

“Poor guy.”

In his ear, Natasha’s voice was saying, “Rogers, where are you? We need your help with something big.”

“Shit, I’ve gotta go.” He paused for a moment. There was one bit of information he would kill himself if he didn’t get from this woman. He stuck out his hand for a shake. “I’m Steve. You are?”

“I’m Y/N,” she told him. He got one more good look at her, the vision in a pea coat, before he was running off to help his team.


	3. Hypnotizing, mesmerizing me, she was everything I dreamed she'd be...

Beads of warm water clung to Steve’s skin as he stepped out of the shower at the compound. He grabbed a plush towel and began drying off. The exhaustion of the mission was just now setting in. Steve could feel it pulling on his eyelids, weighing down his muscular shoulders.

There were no civilian casualties, thank god, but there were some severe injuries, and that always put Steve in a sour mood. They should be better than this, good enough to get the job done without ever infringing on the lives of people just going about their days.

Bucky was waiting for him in the common area. His pal always took it as hard as Steve did when things didn’t go perfectly.

“That mission was fucked from the start,” Bucky said. “We should have seen that explosion coming.”

“We should have, but we didn’t. Nothing we can do about it now.”

“Except sulk,” Bucky suggested.

“Except sulk,” Steve agreed. He made to relax on the large couch, but right before he sat down, a crazy thought occurred to him.

“What do you say we do something else to keep us from sulking?”

“Like what?”

“You could help me find a woman.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Will any woman do, or do you have a specific one in mind?” he joked.

“It’s not like that. Well, maybe it is a tiny bit. I’ve ran into her twice today, but I don’t have much information to go from.”

“So, how do we find her?”

Steve thought she most likely would have taken her nephew to the hospital that his mother worked at. The nurse would have been worried about the wellbeing of her son if she saw the explosion on the news. The woman in the pea coat might have gone to her so that she could check over her son’s health more thoroughly than the medic had.

Steve also figured that the hospital the boy’s mom probably worked at would be the closest one to the residential area where the cab at dropped the woman off earlier that day. After putting these pieces together in his mind, Steve was riding shotgun in Bucky’s sleek car. Again, the roof was low enough for Steve to have to hold his head at an awkward angle. He hated cars.

When they pulled into the hospital parking lot, Bucky said he’d wait in the car. Steve walked into the main entrance and asked if anyone had seen a woman in a pea coat and emerald sweater named Y/N. He asked a few nurses if any of them had a sister with that name. They all shook their heads and looked at him like he was insane.

He supposed this hadn’t been the most well thought out plan.

When he returned to the car and told Bucky there’d been no luck, his friend asked if he wanted to try a different hospital.

Steve sighed. “No, this was a stupid idea anyway. Will you just give me a ride to my apartment?”

Bucky nodded his head but said, “You know, it might be time to get a new bike, Stevie. Yours seems to be fighting you every step of the way.”

“I really don’t want to part with my old one, Buck. I’ve had it for ages. It’s familiar.”

“So, keep it, but buy a back-up bike for days like this so you don’t have to rely on public transport or bumming rides off your best friend,” he finished with a smirk.

“You should be so honored to chauffer Captain America around,” Steve pointed out sarcastically.

Bucky gave him a rough shove to let him know exactly how he felt about that.

It was nearly eleven that night, but Steve couldn’t get any sleep. He slipped some clothes back on and decided to head to the bar right down the street. He couldn’t get drunk, but some smooth whiskey still sounded rather nice.

The bar was pretty dead this time of night. It was a weekday after all. He ordered his drink and tapped out a melody with his fingers on the counter. An old song, a playful tune, one that often got stuck in Steve’s head when it was late and he couldn’t sleep.

Glass slid slick across the wooden top as the bartender passed the blond his drink. The amber liquid felt soothing as it ran down Steve’s throat. He rubbed his tired eyes and let out a heavy sigh. The past six hours had been strange and crazy. Difficult, but also hopeful.

As his mind fell back to the pea coat, he heard a voice behind him.

“What a night, huh?” she said in a lovely tone.

And Steve turned his head to find that it was her, pea coat off this time, thrown over her right arm, and her emerald sweater on full display. Her hair was pulled back out of her face now, and Steve could appreciate the shape of her face entirely. She was beautiful. A mesmerizing vision.

“How’d you find me here?” he wondered rather than answering her question.

“I wasn’t actually looking for you. I live a block from here, and this is my go-to drinking spot when it’s been a long day. What is Captain America doing here?”

“I live right down the street,” he explained, and he couldn’t stop the smile from forming in his cheeks at the sheer irony of it all.

“Are you sure you’re not stalking me?” she teased. “I heard a little rumor that a certain Avenger was wandering around the hospital where my sister works looking for a woman that fits my very same description.”

Steve blushed a little. “Huh, what an odd rumor. Definitely sounds false.”

“Riiiight. Did you really think that was a good plan?”

He shook his head. “No. I knew it was dumb, but my friend and I were a little exhausted both emotionally and physically from that mission. I just needed something a little ridiculous to focus on, I suppose.”

She was still giving him a skeptical look, like she didn’t fully understand.

“Sometimes, all you need to do is completely make an ass out of yourself and laugh it off to realize that life isn’t so bad after all.”

She let out a little laugh of her own. “Wow, such words of wisdom from a complete jock. I never would have expected it.”

Steve grinned. He waved down the bartender and told Y/N to order a drink on him.

They didn’t fall in love in one night. They didn’t even exchange numbers. But Steve knew her name, and he learned about what she did for work. He knew she lived in the neighborhood and that this was her favorite drinking spot.

When they parted, fifteen minutes past midnight, she mentioned that she hoped to see him here again soon. Steve expressed a similar hope of his own.

He swore that their three separate meetings had been no coincidence, and he knew that they’d meet again many more times. She was a wonder to him, and Steve could finally sleep easy knowing that they would not go on as strangers, forgetting the mere existence of each other.

Her darling features would not fade away in his mind, and there was a good chance he’d catch her in that emerald sweater and pea coat once or twice more.


End file.
